Land Value Taxation will solve many of the 21st century's most serious social, economic and environmental problems, and promote justice, fairness and sustainability. We CAN have a world in which all can prosper.

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Pages I refer to often

Progress and Poverty, by Henry GeorgeHere are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience!

Books I Value

Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The RemedyThis is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy.

Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

Where Else Might You Look?

Wealth and WantThe URL comes from the subtitle to Progress & Poverty -- and the goal is widely shared prosperity in the 21st century. How do we get there from here? A roadmap and a reference source.

Reforming the Property Tax for the Common GoodI'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty. Let's start with the enabling legislation and state requirements for the property tax. There are opportunities for great good!

July 2015

Notes

Some Observations from the 2006 IRS Statistics of Income Data

Each year, the IRS issues spreadsheets of data taken from Individual Income Tax returns. I think the data might surprise many readers. The data is based on Adjusted Gross Income. About 2% of returns report no AGI -- that is, higher losses than income; the average loss was just over $34,000 in 2006. The remainder of the data reported here omits those 2% of returns. The table below aggregates groups the spreadsheet breaks out (the spreadsheet reports these ranges: $1 to $5,000; $5-$10,000; $10-$15,000; $15-$20,000; $20-$25,000; $25-$30,000; $30-$40,000; $40-$50,000; $50-$75,000; $75-$100,000; $100-$200,000, $200-$500,000; $500-1,500,000; $1.5-2.0 million; $2 to $5 million; $5 to $10 million; $10 million and over).

This data all comes from IRS SOI Table 1.4 for 2006, and my own calculations.

Some observations:

47.70% of us had AGI under $30,000 in 2006. That 47.7% of us received 11.32% of the AGI and ended up with 9.38% of the after-tax income. (This ignores OASDI payments, which hit incomes under $100,000 disproportionately)

66.00% of us had AGI under $50,000 in 2006. That 66.0% of us received 23.28% of the AGI and ended up with 19.12% of the after-tax income

88.10% of us had AGI under $100,000. That 88.10% of us had 49.37% of the AGI and ended up with 59.69% of the after-tax income (before paying OASDI, which, for 75% of us amounts to more than our federal income tax).

11.90% of us had AGI over $100,000. That 11.90% of us had over half of the AGI, and 47.45% of the after-tax income; and their OASDI payments were a relatively small portion of their federal liability.

3.0% of us had AGI over $200,000. That 3.0% of us received 30.85% of AGI, and ended up with 27.70% of after-tax income.

fewer than 12% of us were in the 25% marginal tax bracket, excluding OASDI

fewer than 3% of us were in the 28% marginal tax bracket, excluding OASDI

fewer than 1% of us were in the 33% marginal tax bracket, excluding OASDI

Keep in mind that OASDI is 7.65% of wage income, and that for about half of us, OASDI exceeds federal income tax.

Looking at this information, what income range would you define as "middle class"? What percentage of us make up that "middle class"? One might reasonably look at it this way:

Bottom 1/3 of us -- AGI under $20,000: lower middle class, poor and working poor

Middle 1/3 of us -- AGI of $20,000 to $50,000 -- middle class

Top 1/3 of us -- AGI of $50,000 or more -- upper middle class

Top 10% of us -- AGI of ~$120,000 or more -- upper class

While it does not show up in the above table, AMT (Alternate Minimum Tax) in 2006 affected 2.87% of returns -- 3,967,000 returns. Of them,

9.07% of returns in the $100-$200,000 AGI range were subject to the AMT - - 0.79% of the 2.87%

71.83% of returns in the $200-$500,000 AGI range were subject to the AMT - - 1.62% of the 2.87%

64.82% of returns in the $500-$1,000,000 AGI range were subject to the AMT -- 0.28% of the 2.87%

While we regularly hear about the AMT being a plague on the Middle Class, much depends on what one considers the middle. 97% of all returns show AGI lower than $100,000:

9.87% of the AMT paid was in the $100,000 to $200,000 AGI range;

50.93% of the AMT paid was in the $200,000 to $500,000 AGI range;

36.78% of the AMT paid was in the $500,000 to $1,000,00 AGI range

All of this is written to point out that our Federal Income Tax is rather poorly structured. I firmly believe that we place our taxes on the wrong tax base, and exacerbate our concentration of wealth. What SHOULD we tax? The basis of all production: the value of land and other natural resources. Don't tax what people create; tax what none of us created individually -- correct the windfall which its privatization creates. Set us all equal with respect to natural resources and land value.

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